An examination of our many modes of online identity and how we live on the continuum between the virtual and the real. Hello Avatar! Or, {llSay(0, "Hello, Avatar!"); is a tiny piece of user-friendly code that allows us to program our virtual selves. In Hello Avatar, B. Coleman examines a crucial aspect of our cultural shift from analog to digital: the continuum between online and off-, what she calls the “x-reality” that crosses between the virtual and the real. She looks at the emergence of a world that is neither virtual nor real but encompasses a multiplicity of network combinations. And she argues that it is the role of the avatar to help us express our new agency—our new power to customize our networked life. By avatar, Coleman means not just the animated figures that populate our screens but the gestalt of images, text, and multimedia that make up our online identities—in virtual worlds like Second Life and in the form of email, video chat, and other digital artifacts. Exploring such network activities as embodiment, extreme (virtual) violence, and the work in virtual reality labs, and offering sidebar interviews with designers and practitioners, she argues that what is new is real-time collaboration and copresence, the way we make connections using networked media and the cultures we have created around this. The star of this drama of expanded horizons is the networked subject—all of us who represent aspects of ourselves and our work across the mediascape.

The proliferation of new digital technologies has given rise to an entirely changed media landscape and revolutionized how we seek entertainment. Older entertainment media like novels, radio, and film have been joined by a host of digital media that smartphones allow us to carry almost anywhere and at all times, from video games and social media to video on demand services. This unprecedented ubiquity of entertainment media calls for new and more sophisticated theories that help us understand the fascination that different entertainment media exert on us and how they change the human experience. The Oxford Handbook of Entertainment Theory surveys and furthers the most influential psychology-driven research on media entertainment to illuminate how people are drawn into media experiences. The 41 chapters in this Handbook not only offer fresh perspectives on established theories but also introduce emerging models and highlight the importance of considering the diverse backgrounds of media users when conducting research. They also cover the motivations and reactions of media users in relationship to different types of media, the trend towards interactive media such as video games and virtual reality, and particularly popular media contents like sexuality, violence, sports, and the news. As the most comprehensive overview of psychology-based research on media entertainment available, this Handbook is an invaluable resource for seasoned researchers and those beginning to learn about the field alike.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Engaging with Videogames focuses on the multiplicity of lenses through which the digital game can be understood, particularly as a cultural artefact, economic product, educational tool, and narrative experience. Game studies remains a highly interdisciplinary field, and as such tends to bring together scholars and researchers from a wide variety of fields and analytical practices. As such, this volume includes explorations of videogames from the fields of literature, visual art, history, classics, film studies, new media studies, phenomenology, education, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, as well as game studies, design, and development. The chapters are organised thematically into four sections focusing on educational game practices, videogame cultures, videogame theory, and the practice of critical analysis. Within these chapters are explorations of sexual identity and health, videogame history, slapstick, player mythology and belief systems, gender and racial ideologies, games as a ‘body-without organs,’ and controversial games from Mass Effect 3 to Raid over Moscow. This volume aims to inspire further research in this rapidly evolving and expanding field.

Rapid digitalization has led to the evolution of customer behaviour and for any business it has become imperative to understand customer behaviour in the digital world – Navigating the Digital Landscape explores a wide range of topics to help the reader harness the positive aspects of digital commerce and mitigate risks.

This book describe the Psychology of Social Networking. In order to 'be online', an individual has to create an online presence. This online self is presented in different ways, with diverse goals and aims in order to engage in different social media activities and to achieve desired outcomes. The authors propose a wide overview of the psychology of social networking and the several implications of new media in our lives.

What is an avatar? Why are there nearly a billion of them, and who is using them? Do avatars impact our real lives, or are they just video game conceits? Is an avatar an inspired rendering of its creator’s inner self, or is it just one among millions of anonymous vehicles clogging the online freeways? Can we use our avatars to really connect with people, or do they just isolate us? And as we become more like our avatars do they become more like us? In I, Avata r, Mark Stephen Meadows answers some of these questions, but more importantly, he raises hundreds of others in his exploration of avatars and the fascinating possibilities they hold. His examination of avatars through the lenses of sociology, psychology, politics, history, and art, he will change the way you look at even a simple online profile and revolutionize the idea of avatars as part of our lives, whether first or second.